1 Kings 7:40-51

40 Now Hiram made the basins and the shovels and the bowls. So Hiram finished doing all the work which he performed for King Solomon in the house of the Lord: 41 the two pillars and the two bowls of the capitals which were on the top of the two pillars, and the two networks to cover the two bowls of the capitals which were on the top of the pillars; 42 and the four hundred pomegranates for the two networks, two rows of pomegranates for each network to cover the two bowls of the capitals which were on the tops of the pillars; 43 and the ten stands with the ten basins on the stands; 44 and the one sea and the twelve oxen under the sea; 45 and the pails and the shovels and the bowls; even all these utensils which Hiram made for King Solomon in the house of the Lord were of polished bronze. 46 In the plain of the Jordan the king cast them, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarethan. 47 Solomon left all the utensils unweighed, because they were too many; the weight of the bronze could not be ascertained.

48 Solomon made all the furniture which was in the house of the Lord: the golden altar and the golden table on which was the bread of the Presence; 49 and the lampstands, five on the right side and five on the left, in front of the inner sanctuary, of pure gold; and the flowers and the lamps and the tongs, of gold; 50 and the cups and the snuffers and the bowls and the spoons and the firepans, of pure gold; and the hinges both for the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the house, that is, of the nave, of gold.

51 Thus all the work that King Solomon performed in the house of the Lord was finished. And Solomon brought in the things dedicated by his father David, the silver and the gold and the utensils, and he put them in the treasuries of the house of the Lord.

It’s interesting that there were too many utensils that they left them all “unweighed”. I suppose they were recording the weight of everything, and then at some point they made all these bronze utensils and the folks doing the weighing and recording looked at them and said, “you want us to do what?!”

Did it really matter how much they weighed? Not really, the important thing was what they were doing for God. It’s easy to get sidetracked by a myriad of unimportant details. But what we really need to be about is doing the will of our Father.

Everything else is peripheral. Not that we can’t have fun, or do some things that are “just for us”. The point is not to get bogged down in the minutiae, and to keep in mind the big picture. What is the goal? What are you trying to accomplish? Why are you spending time on that particular task? God wants us to be good stewards of the resources He has given us, and that includes our time.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *